


The Way He Writes His Name

by gouguruheddo



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Feelings Realization, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Manga Spoilers, chapter 84 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-17 22:19:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11277918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gouguruheddo/pseuds/gouguruheddo
Summary: Levi is the Humanity's Strongest, but Erwin respects him for more than that. Levi is a man, a complexly elegant man, and he expresses his admiration and respect in the way that he writes his name.





	The Way He Writes His Name

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lenacs](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lenacs).



> this fic is for lencas on tumblr. they won second place in my eruri giveaway. thank you for entering. :)
> 
> "For the prompt (since I'm a sucker for canon), I was thinking of Levi and Erwin working lazily in Erwin's office, and over the course of their banter/ppwork, something clicks and Levi finally *knows*. He finally gets it. That Erwin makes him feel something strange and terrifying and amazing. Maybe there's hints that Erwin feels affection for Levi too, but it doesn't have to be said. Just a little moment of acknowledged devotion. Or something. Feel free to do whatever u feel with it."
> 
> i really fell in love with this piece. i think it's toward the top as being one of my favorite ones i've written so far, so thanks again.

Levi is a collection of skills honed for survival.

He knows how to wield a knife--either hand, any grip. Knows where pressure points are, how the arteries in a person’s body works, which is the best to cut open to bleed them out like a sheep. He knows who to mark, who to tail to snatch coin purses from those that don’t deserve it, gives the excess to children with dirty feet and empty bellies. He’s clever, sharply spoken, and cunning.

He doesn’t have time to enjoy much. A good cup of hot, black tea. The small assortment of knives he has. Distractions help. Cleaning clears his mind, reminds him he has a place to stay, which is more than a lot of people can say. Helps him keep it off of his mother and Kenny and the ache in his belly that never really goes away. He finds that he enjoys writing. He leaves fear in his house, bundled under blankets that have frayed at the edges. He returns to it at night, weighted under it, practices his handwriting with it draped over him with the faint flicker of half melted candlelight.

Forgery is the easiest route to a paycheck. But he soon realizes that literacy opens doors available only to those that hold power. Levi wants power. Not in a noble sense, but in a sense that the fittest stay that way because they stay _educated_. Where blood keeps veins heated and pumping not so much unlike ink. He scratches words across parchment paper, writing over words that are already there, working out the spellings between his lips without speaking. He gets good at it, is good at mimicking others, just like the rest of his life.

Levi is a collection of people he’s never known. Until he meets Erwin.

One of the first things Levi learns about the military is that there’s a lot of paperwork. There’s paperwork for everything: equipment, horses, food, funding, outposts, salaries, right down to cleaning schedules for the fucking privies. Erwin delegates some of it once he takes command. There’s four main Survey Corps outposts, so naturally all the work cannot fall on his shoulders, no matter how much he may prefer it that way.

He delegates expense and inventory reports to Levi. With Levi’s clean and steady handwriting, short and precise wording, he is able to blow through the paperwork and hand off to Erwin to sign. Erwin catches him one day scrawling Erwin’s signature in the corner of a piece of scrap paper. Erwin writes his name with an elaborate ‘E’ that loops one too many times, the hill of the ‘n’ getting lost into the plain of its tail. His surname overlaps the edge of the ‘i’ in his first, loops past the descender and nearly encapsulates the entirety of ‘Erwin’. It feels good to write, like power and trust and all the things inbetween, flowing from Levi’s wrist like he wields one of his blades.

“That is a very good replication of my signature, Levi.”

Levi startles, puts his quill down so the feather lays across the signature, and folds his arms over his chest. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I do not think you have to come to me to get approval on our expense reports.” He smiles gently before stepping away from Levi’s desk. Levi raises an eyebrow at the sound of boots clicking against wood, and he swivels his head back to the piece of paper before him.

Handwriting is like a fingerprint. There’s trust that no matter how much you try to alter it, a fake can always be found. Levi feels like a fake, here among the men and women that took wings over smelling roses and riding mythical beasts. He came here to see the sky, to free his friends, to follow a man with a vision set too high for him to see. And he says to him--he says to him that he trusts him with his _name_ . This rat from the underground, face muddied and soiled in dirt that would never be fertile, held one of the most powerful names with his fingertips, and he _trusted_ him with it.

Levi doesn’t trust initially, still brings his reports to Erwin to sign. “I do not have time for this at the moment. Please take care of them yourself, Levi. I trust you.”

Levi looks at the corner of the papers, swallows and nods. He starts writing Erwin’s signature, normally wouldn’t care about getting caught pretending to be somebody else, but the idea of screwing up an inventory count for rations or blades under Erwin’s name unsettles him. He tries one more time. “It’s not my job.” Levi says.

“It would benefit me greatly if you took it as so.” He says. He doesn’t look up at Levi--when he does his own paperwork, it’s hard to garner much of an audience at all with Erwin.

“I don’t want to be responsible for making you look bad.”

“You could never do such a thing.”

Levi stares at his commander’s bowed head, tries to let the words settle in his gut without making him feel sick. He tucks the papers under his arm and leaves Erwin’s office without another word. He passes in the reports, forged and frauded with the commander’s signature, and their new shipment of rations, gas, jackets, and blades come in the next week. Completely accurate, completely within their needs and budget. Erwin thanks him.

Levi watches Erwin more. Takes a seat to Erwin’s right, uses the end of the desk for his own workspace that Erwin nevers asks him to return. And he watches how he writes, sees how heavy his quill strokes can be depending on the name, the report, the time of day. He watches how he writes Levi’s name, how there always seems to be a beat to it, gentle and steady, deliberate. He starts the ‘L’ with a loop, like he does his own name, a loop at the angle, the end of the stroke folding back into the open space. The ‘e’ is open and loose, the crook of the ‘v’ sharp and defined, the ‘i’ dotted carefully and always immediately above the stem. He has no last name, never cared for one, doesn’t take a fake one, and Erwin respects it. Erwin writes his name exactly the same every time. Levi takes it for his own, having studied the scripture of Erwin’s writing as if it is the printing press to his identity.

“What is it?”

Levi blinks slowly, drifts his eyes up and shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”

Erwin looks at him, and he feels strange inside his chest. Levi is a collection of feelings that he tries to repress, but Erwin opens him like a sewing box, pulls out his threads and detangles him, finds beauty in everything that he is, tugs on the thick red string he finds until Levi feels it scar his heart. “You have been staring for a rather long time.” His voice is quiet and measured like it always is.

“You should be quicker if you expect to get any of this done tonight.” Levi looks down at his own paperwork, presses his lips together in order to keep the feeling inside.

Erwin tilts his head slightly, the candlelight revealing the quaintest of smiles in the pool of shadows on his cheek. “Some things are worth the extra time.”

Levi is a collection of surprises. Erwin returns to his office after an expedition, looks around confused and jokingly checks to see if he is in the correct office. “What is this?”

“Dinner.” Levi says. He’s dragged a small table all the way from his quarters into the center of the room, set fat candles along the surface with no bases, the wax pooling and beading around the edges. Two small plates with cooling food sit in front of two accompanying chairs. Levi has dressed out of his jacket, has it hung over the back of his chair, and he pulls out the other one as an offer. “We survived another day. We should talk about how we can continue to do it.”

Erwin nods, steps into the room and closes the door behind him. He removes his jacket and places it on the back of his chair. Levi pushes the chair in before Erwin sits down, and it draws a toothy grin from Erwin, blue eyes all alit in awe. “Thank you, Levi.”

Levi shrugs, doesn’t match eyes as he remains standing. He pours some tea into their tea cups before taking a seat across from him. “It’s nothing.”

With the tea at his nose, Erwin looks up at Levi, still smiling. “What is this?”

“The tea you ordered.”

“Pardon me?”

“From the capital. You ordered it in the last expense report. You signed for it and everything.”

Erwin smiles wider, takes a sip before setting it down on its saucer. “Ah yes, I remember. I have great taste.”

“You would if you didn’t put so much syrup in it.”

“It’s amazing how you know exactly how much I like.” Erwin brushes his fingers against Levi’s knuckles, and Levi cross his legs, brings his hand away and leans heavily on the table. That evening he practices Erwin’s name again and again until the paper goes black and the feeling in his gut dissipates from an angry beast to an agitated cat. He doesn’t sleep, instead takes to stalking the halls outside of Erwin’s quarters and ends his night up on the roof. He scratches with a knife his and Erwin’s names into stone using Erwin’s handwriting, handwriting that is now his own. He grows distraught with the imperfections and the impossibilities of getting it perfect, and rubs at it until the blade edge grows dull and the sun crests over the training ground trees.

Levi knows Erwin. Or thinks he does.

When Erwin loses his arm, Levi hesitates to second guess the past six years. They had become more than Commander and Captain--Erwin had tugged too hard on his red string and found himself laying his head to rest on pillows instead of chair backs. They don’t talk about what it is--they do nothing but exist in this world to hopefully save it, finding solace in each other in the dark parts of the world that eat away all the light. Levi knows Erwin, until that smile, then he’s not sure he knew him at all.

“I submitted the expedition report for you.” Levi drops down into his chair to the right of Erwin. “Your handwriting is shit. I had to rewrite the whole thing for you.”

Erwin hums, struggles to shuffle through some papers before Levi begins to lean over and help. Erwin slams his fist down on his desk, doesn’t look at Levi as he blurts out: “ _I can do it_.”

“Erwin--”

Erwin sighs, shakes his head once and looks off the left corner of his desk. “I… I apologize.”

“Don’t.”

With a shaking hand he picks up the quill and dips it into his inkwell. He draws off the excess ink before bringing it to the piece of paper in front of him. It’s the proposal for an expedition to reclaim Shinganshina and to discover what is in Yeager’s basement. Levi watches like he always does, feels pieces of his heart scratching away as Erwin struggles to steady his hand, to keep the paper from moving as he scrawls.

There’s more discarded paper than there ever has been. When the ink blots or a name is too illegible or a word needs to be crossed out too many times the page gets tossed. Levi is a collection of scrap. Bundled in his jacket pocket, he returns them to his room, studies Erwin’s untrained hand and learns to mimic that too. But he finds, in a way that makes him sick, that his name looks the same. The same loops, the same sharp ‘v’, the perfectly placed dot to the ‘i’. His name always looks perfect--always looks better than anybody else’s.

At night, Levi begins to write in the lines of the discarded reports. Stories of their pasts, of their quiet moments, of things he may have done, the things he regretted before he came above ground. He stashes them in his desk drawer as a secret, takes them out to feel the slight indentation of his written name as if he’s touching Erwin... Erwin is so hard to touch now.

He sleeps with him less, can’t break through to him to show him how much he cares. The words he writes on the scrap papers are words he can never say aloud in fear of breaking them both. He’ll follow Erwin anywhere, to hell and heaven and the edges of the earth if need be, but it scares him to admit, to think, to live a life knowing that it will end.

He finds himself weighted under blankets again, alone on his bed scrawling words nobody will ever read, until the day that Erwin leaves him for good. He burns the scraps, empties the collections of his words long enough to fill books into the fireplace of Erwin’s office. They curl and pop, black edges of flame chewing at the parchment like hungry demons. He hesitates about throwing one of the pieces away--the one that explains that feeling he had the day he recognized how deeply Erwin cared for him--where it wasn’t just his body but his _name_ that was worth respecting and protecting. He tosses it in, huddles his knees to his chest as he rests his cheek on them, the heat from the fire beading sweat across his forehead.

The military is full of paperwork. There’s nine of them now, but he still has to fill it out. He reviews the roster that Erwin had written out before they left. The supplies they would be bringing, the summary of actions that intended to complete. Levi furrows his eyebrows at the first line in the roster--Erwin Smith. Hastily written, barely noticeable as his hand, almost as if it were an after thought unworthy of being on top of the list. He sits with it, is only supposed to write the final report before handing it off to Hange to finalize, but it doesn’t feel right. He goes through Erwin’s drawers, grabs a fresh roster paper and re-writes every line exactly how Erwin had it before--except he writes his name as proudly and elegantly as he used to write it when they had first met. A signature fit for the best commander the Survey Corps ever had, for the most important person Levi had ever and would ever encounter.

Levi is a collection of things--memories and feelings, skills both fit for survival and for exhibition. He’s a living collection of Erwin, scrawled out on paper that he sets aflame when the memories grow too cumbersome. He used to steal names to stay alive, now he keeps names so Erwin will never die. He writes his name to never forget, shudders as he dots his ‘i’, sighs at the way he had been honored so completely--body and soul--this shitty rat from the underground. He writes his name to try to remember a time where he dared to let the scars on his heart peel, to be exposed and raw and red, tangled in Erwin’s thread but stitched together...

Whole.

Complete.

_Loved_.


End file.
